Israeli leaders shun Carter during visit

Chicago Tribune

Published Tuesday, April 15, 2008

SDEROT, Israel -- A visit to Israel by Jimmy Carter, already under a cloud because of his planned meeting in Syria with the leader of Hamas, soured further on Monday when a dispute erupted over the lack of Israeli secret service protection for the former president of the United States.

Shunned by Israeli government leaders, Carter, who is on a Middle East tour, visited the rocket-scarred border town of Sderot and called attacks on it by Palestinian militants in Gaza "a despicable crime" that he hoped a cease-fire would halt.

Carter's planned talks with Hamas and a book he published in 2006, "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid," which called Israeli policy in occupied Palestinian territories "a system of apartheid," have caused official displeasure in Israel, and his efforts to meet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and senior cabinet ministers were rebuffed.

Along with the official snub, Israel's Shin Bet security service, which is overseen by Olmert's office and normally helps protect visiting dignitaries, has not assisted U.S. Secret Service agents guarding Carter.

An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that no request had been received for such protection, which he said was automatically extended to serving presidents or prime ministers, but not to former leaders.

"They didn't request, so they didn't receive," the official said.

Carter's delegation responded in a written statement that it had been told "unequivocally" by the lead agent of Carter's Secret Service detail and the State Department Regional Security Officer that "an official request for assistance had been made" to the Israelis.

In Sderot, Carter was surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents, but none from the Shin Bet. Israeli police provided an escort and guarded the perimeter of sites Carter visited.

After viewing spent rockets piled in the back of the local police station, many marked with the dates and locations of where they had hit, Carter said he was "distressed" by the sight.

Militants from Hamas and other groups in the Gaza Strip have fired thousands of crude rockets in the past seven years, killing 13 people and injuring hundreds more.

Carter, who is expected to meet Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus on Friday, said that he would not attempt to broker a cease-fire between the militant group and Israel. "I'm not in the negotiating business," he said, but added that he did want to help nudge Hamas into peace diplomacy.

"Ultimately there's no doubt that Hamas has to be involved in the peace process," Carter said, "and I hope that we can induce them to do so."

In an interview with the Haaretz newspaper, Carter said he would use his meeting with Mashaal to check Hamas' readiness to accept an Arab peace initiative, to work for the release of an Israeli soldier held in Gaza and ascertain the fate of two others seized by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.

Speaking at a conference organized by an Israeli financial newspaper, Carter said he wanted to serve as a "communicator" between Hamas and the United States, which is boycotting the group and classifies it as a terrorist organization. Hamas has killed scores of Israelis in suicide bombings and refuses to recognize Israel, though it has proposed a conditional long-term truce.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters that the United States "made clear our views that we did not think now is the moment for (Carter) or anyone to be talking with Hamas. ... But he is a private citizen, and it certainly is his decision."

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In Sderot, Carter was taken to view a home shattered by a rocket two months ago. He tried to chat with Simcha Zakzak, 59, who was injured by shrapnel when the rocket crashed through the roof as she sat in the living room. "What can I say?" she said, sitting near the wreckage, which still had not been cleared. "No one is helping."

Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal told reporters that he had "mixed feelings" about Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who brokered the 1978 Camp David accords that led to a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, but whose book, "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid" caused a furor. Critics, among them leaders of American Jewish groups, charged that the title unfairly compared Israeli policies to those of the former racist government of South Africa.

"An apartheid state doesn't suffer from rockets, doesn't suffer fears," Moyal said. "Look at these missiles. We are suffering here."

He presented Carter with a souvenir: the tail of a rocket, painted gold.

(c) 2008, Chicago Tribune.

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